Inside the Boeing 787

Big windows. High ceilings. Overhead bins that will hold those overstuffed carry-ons. Wireless entertainment (and office e-mail) to your seat. More natural air so your face doesn't feel like it spent six hours in the Sahara Desert.

It's coming. Someday.

No more aging airliners on domestic routes, where the average age of a major jet is nearly 15. No more busted arm rests, 1990s-era TV sets hanging from the ceiling, duct-taped carpet and banged-up bathrooms. No more wasted space for kitchen galleys from the era before airlines decided to starve their customers. No more tiny windows that you have to crane to see out. All gone.

Starting ... someday.

When? Maybe the end of this year. In Japan. All Nippon Airways gets the first 787.

When will Americans be able to fly this American-made aircraft on routes within America?

Someday.

It likely will be on an airline that doesn't even exist yet – the newly merged United and Continental awaiting approval from the feds. Maybe late next year.

And don't look for it at John Wayne Airport – it's too big and heavy for us.

Still, the Dreamliner is likely going to be part of your traveling for most of the rest of your life. With more than 800 on order, it will fill the skies until well toward the middle of the century.

I had hoped to be flying regularly on the Dreamliner by now – it's two years behind schedule. So I had to travel up to Seattle, Boeing's home (if no longer its headquarters, which moved to Chicago several years ago) to take a look.

I could have gone to the assembly plant in Everett, Wash., to see the engineering marvels of the swept-wing jet, it's thrifty General Electric GEnx (bet the engineers didn't come up with the cutesy name) and lightweight composite body. I could have heard how mechanics on the ground could monitor the plane while it was in the air via wireless updates.

Great stuff. But I wanted inside. Where I and the rest of the traveling public would spend hundreds or even thousands of hours for the rest of our traveling lives.

I came away impressed – and disappointed.

To see the inside the Dreamliner, I didn't board a plane but instead went inside an office park. Boeing operates the equivalent of an interior furnishings showroom for customers off a wooded road in Renton, just south of Seattle.

Kent Craver, the "regional director of passenger satisfaction and revenue," showed me around a mock-up of the 787 interior. He's a cool, smart, calm-voiced evangelist for Boeing's goods.

Craver said Boeing knows that any aircraft manufacturer has a built-in problem with their customers.

"No one would choose to sit for several hours on a plane," he said. "They're bored or angry when using our product."

The company consulted with psychologists, cultural anthropologists – and Disney – to improve the passenger experience without getting in the way of the revenue stream of their real customers, the airlines.

The key is trying to get people away from the feeling that they are being forced into a very large toothpaste tube. With airports a source of traveler anxiety, the move onto the airplane should also signal a switch in attitude.

"We want to create a psychological separation so people leave their ground experience on the ground and feel welcomed," Craver said.

It starts with an open lobby-like area at the aircraft doorway. On entry, there's a lot to like. Sculpted design and LED lights give the interior a feeling – perhaps illusion – of height, width and light. I was pleased to see that individual overhead air blowers were back, so your seatmate's garlic-soaked carry-on lunch can be counterattacked.

"As much as possible, people want a personal space that they can control," Craver said.

Bathrooms are bigger, so passengers can change clothes without squirming around like a crazy man in a straightjacket.

Even the big bins are psychologically calming. No worries that you won't be able to store your bag over your seat. The powerful hinges don't require Herculean strength on your tippytoes to close.

Up front, it's a wonderful world of fold-flat first-class seats and fat business-class seats that look like flying La-Z-Boy recliners designed by the Jetsons. Boeing expects that the 787 will become the go-to airliner of the high-end flier.

"The business traveler knows his or her aircraft because they spend so much time on them," Craver said. "This plane will be preferred, extremely preferred, by business travelers."

Great! And how about the rest of us?

Welcome back to reality.

No matter what designers pull out of their bag of tricks, the crush of economy-class seats, even when empty in a showroom, brings on shudders. Boeing has suggested to airlines that they use a civilized "3-2-3" seat layout of eight seats per row, separated by two aisles.

Sorry. Most airlines have opted for the "other" option of adding one more seat per row for an elbow-crunching, nine-across "3-3-3" layout. The future of flight might be brighter and more colorful, but it comes with the nightmare of 17.2-inch-wide seats creating the familiar sardine effect in economy class.

"It all comes down to revenue," Craver said. "In economy class, it is all about price, and most passengers are not willing to pay a dime for extras, including space."

Craver said the 787 will be an improved flight experience, even for those in the airliner equivalent of steerage. And if the day dawns when economy passengers are willing to pay more for comforts, Boeing's designers are ready.